The combination of words and illustrations are what gives some pony books their special magic. Silver Snaffles, when reprinted by Knight as a paperback in the 1970s, lost all its illustrations and, for many readers, much of its charm. When the news spread about Fidra’s reprint of the book, virtually all the requests I had for it asked me to confirm the reprint had the original illustrations. Those people saw the book and its illustrations as a whole, and as something which had suffered when the illustrations were cut.
For many of us, Caney’s Jill will always be our Jill, and Geoffrey Whittam’s Tamzin and Rissa I find it almost impossible to imagine as looking any different to his portrayal of them.
The pony book has beenlucky in having some splendid illustrators (as well, it must be said, as those who appear never to have seen a horse). In the UK, titles illustrated by Lionel Edwards are collected regardless of how good the books themselves are. Many sporting illustrators have a number of pony book commissions to their credit: Cecil Aldin, Peter Biegel, Gilbert Holiday and Michael Lyne among them.
There is already some information on this site about Anne Bullen, and there will be much more about the illustrators below, starting with Lionel Edwards.
